unicorn, I'm sorry to hear your family are unsupportive. why not rely on your friends as we can choose them and rarely choose badly! hope you feel better later, do something that makes you happy, pamper yourself, realise what a truly wonderful person you are and without their help too! Sing, "I am what I am" loudly or some other girly anthem. Chin up!

Unicorn, I know the feeling. I don't get on very well with my mum or her husband and have recently come to the conclusion that we have to deal with it by going to some counselling so that all the issues are dealt with via an impartial 3rd party. It's either that or stop speaking to them and that's not dealing with it, much as it's a tempting option <sigh>. Nothing earth shatteringly awful in my case, just usual old stuff but it still needs resolving. Could you do that? I don't know if it's realistic in your position. If you had more other support from elsewhere do you think you'd feel better about your family? Or is there stuff there that needs to be discussed? Sympathy anyway.

I wish I had the answer. My family don't seem to see that I am now married and with children of my own. In their eyes if they say "jump" I'm still supposed to ask "how high?".

I don't see them very often, even though most of them live very near to me. Dh calls me "the invisible one" because they really don't seem to notice that I'm even there - except when they want something.

I also have the same feeling - with my mother. She is staying with us at the moment and I have come to dread her coming and spend the whole time completely stressed, miserable and forget how to laugh while she is here (not good when ds is only a month old) feel really bad when she goes (guilt, disappointment etc...). I have been going through the same feelings of thinking I have to do something, and have thought about counselling as I think a lot fo the problem is unresolved issues from childhood. Like you Unicorn, I don't want to cut her out, she is my mum and (I think) I love her (somehow), and it woudl completely break her heart, i just wish she was completely different to what she is in every way I can think of.

I am relieved her visit (of 10 days) is coming ot an end, next time I have to tell her she can come only for a few days. I know i should talk to her about the situation but I can't talk to her!!!

The rest of the family (have 5 siblings) don't make me feel quite so bad, but I am often disappointed by them.

Unicorn, its really tough. My dad let us down really badly as a family when i was a child, I thought he didn't care about us and I spent years hating him and had only just started rebuilding a relationship with him when he got cancer. He died almost 6 years ago, i spent a long time feeling guilty and sad that I hadn't confronted him and made him talk to me about what his problem was.... I have some ideas now and think a lot of it wasn't his fault! I don't feel guilty or sad anymore, but do worry that the bad relationship will continue with my mum until the end of her life. Thing is (in my unreligious opinion) its those of us left behind that suffer not the ones that go.

The encouraging thing is that we are not alone in these frustrating situations with our parents. Seems as though a lot of people have problems. It somehow seems easier to keep the peace and not talk openly about the problems so they never get resolved.

Mine are the same, my relationship has broken down so my sister is now in a mood because I went to Mum and Dad's for the weekend rather than her's. She then demanded to know if I would be coming down in the next 3/4 weeks because she wasn't sure of what her diary was like. When I said I wasn't sure she went into a mood because it was her birthday soon, I could be given a council house (possibly?) so how do I know?

Then Mum and Dad just told me to "leave her to it" because "that is just the way she is". Oh well, that is okay then.

totally sympathise with this. its hard to put into words without writing an essay but i constantly struggle to feel close to my family.

i just feel total frustration with them and the way they deal (or rather DON'T deal with a problem). for example not telling me my real dad was someone else until i was a teenager, and then not telling my sister (we have different dads, the man i thought was my dad is hers) until i gave mum an ultimatum. this was about 10 years after i was told!!!